The Changeling That Bugged My Heart

by sIDsleeper


A Mother's Words

Chapter 3. - A Mother’s Words

An awkward silence fell upon the unlikely companions. Archive was familiar with pony biology enough to know what “balls” were, but she didn’t know the meaning of the figure of speech Lantern had used to describe what she did for him, despite her condition. On the other hoof, Lantern was quite oblivious to changeling biology, and the signs that defined their gender.

Truth be told, all of ponykind was. A short while ago, they didn’t even know changelings existed. Lantern thought that except for the Queen, there was only one kind of changeling, and he thought those were the males.

Lantern was burning with embarrassment, and since he made short work of the moist piece of moss, he no longer had anything to distract himself with. He decided to simply go with the truth, and tell her he didn’t know there were female changelings aside from the Queen.
He cleared his throat to calm himself and said, “S-sorry, I didn’t mean to call you a stallion, I just assumed there was no female changelings besides your Queen. I thought all of you drones were male.”

Archive snapped her head around to look the pegasus in the eyes with a deep frown.

“I am not a drone!” she said indignantly. “I just said I’m a nymph!”

Lantern seemingly hit a nerve with Archive, but he was ignorant to changeling society, so he tried to ask what the differences were, but Archive was a step ahead of him already, as she started to explain it to him.

“Drones are the lowest caste that are mainly responsible for maintaining the hive. They are sturdy and skillful, working in a variety of jobs, but they’re very one-track minded. Drones can be male and female.”

“Nymphs are of the middle caste, who are in intellectual positions, such as myself. I, for example, am one of the three archives. We’re something like the pony librarians, but we work with the memories of the hive-mind, instead of books. There are other tasks a Nymph could be assigned to, but we’re not built for physical labor. The name Nymph refers to middle caste female ‘lings.”

“Similarly, the males of the middle cast are called Guards. They are fighters. They are the strongest among everyling, except for the Queen of course. They keep the Queen safe, and they deal with the Hunters when they get too rowdy.”

“The Hunters are the top caste of male ‘lings, masters of the Change. They scout the pony territories for suitable targets for the Sirens, walking among the ponies as one of them.”

“The Sirens are the emotion gatherer females of my kind, who take the form of a pony to collect positive feelings by helping their target in some form or manner. Usually every hospital has one or two Sirens.”

By the end of the lecture, she had calmed down considerably. Lantern just sat next to the fire. Most of what Archive just told him simply flew over his head, but he made a mental note of the names and occupation of the different changelings, mostly not to piss her off again by calling her a drone.

“What about the Queen?” asked Lantern curiously.

“The Queen is the Queen. Ruler of all changelings...except she might not be anymore.” said Archive somberly.

“So, if the one I saw in Canterlot is not your Queen, this Chrysalis, then who is she!?” Lantern tried to distract Archive from her thoughts about her ruler.

“That stuck-up Siren was the next Queen-to-be...a princess, bah!” spat Archive in distaste.

“She has the Gift of the Queens. You know, we changelings evolve by finding a special one among us that has an exceptional skill that we call the Gift of the Queens. Then that changeling becomes a princess and starts to lay new eggs, giving their gift to the next generation. Once the old generation brings up the new one and perishes, the new Queen inherits the hive, and the old Queen is encased in resin, and starts her eternal slumber. Obviously, the Queen is always the strongest presence in the hive-mind, but Chrysalis’ gift let her overpower Queen Lilith and seize most of the hive for her own. She never respected the Ancient Law. What she did at Canterlot is as much a crime against us as it is against you ponies, and everything the Ancient Law stands for.”

Lantern realised Archive didn’t tell him what exactly the Ancient Law entailed. He was curious how the changelings’ existence could elude ponykind for so long, and he had a sneaking suspicion it had something to do with that law.

“You keep mentioning that Ancient Law, but you still haven’t told me what it is,” the pegasus reminded her.

“Oh, sorry. I tend to ramble about things and I often get sidetracked. Well, the Ancient Law is the way we live. Mother-Queen Arathea, our first Queen and progenitor of our kind, after giving birth to the very first generation of changelings, made rules for her children. They didn’t have the ability to change their forms at will back then, and so the name ‘changeling’ didn’t really apply to them yet. Arathea called them her family. They would need to feed on positive emotions, so Arathea sent them to the earth pony tribes. The first rule she made was to never allow the ponies to see them. They helped the ponies from the shadows, making their lives easier. Keeping them happy would mean they would provide sustenance for the low number of changelings she needed to feed. As time went on, hard times hit the earth ponies. Their numbers would dwindle thanks to the harsh winter and the famine, even though Arathea’s changelings tried to keep their fields fertile. In their frantic endeavour to do just that, an accident happened.”

“A young changeling got so caught up in working to help provide the ponies, that morning dawned on him without him realising it. He was spotted by a filly, who got frightened of him and started to run back to the village. The changeling got so scared that he would break the rule, that he tried to stop the filly from telling the grown-ups what she saw. He wanted to give her some carrots and make her swear to keep his secret, but when he caught up with her and tackled her to the ground, the little filly hit her head on a stone and died. The changeling panicked and fled back to the hive.”

“When the ponies found her body, the whole village knew she was killed, but by whom they didn’t know. They grew mistrusting towards each other and mourned the loss of the young life. This caused the changelings a great deal of problems. When the changeling who killed the filly told the story to his Mother, Arathea fell into despair. She knew they had to abandon the village. As a punishment, she sent her son to find them a new place to live.”

“He accepted the punishment and left. Weeks passed since he left and his siblings were fading quickly. When he eventually returned with a new dwelling place in his mind, he was virtually dead. All he could do was tell his Mother where to go and say ‘sorry’. By the time Arathea told him she forgave her, he was already gone.”

“Arathea declared to her children the second rule: ‘Never hurt a pony, directly or otherwise, and never let one die!’. This rule would excuse you from letting a pony see you, and a saved pony’s gratitude could even provide you with food. Losing a pony’s life, just to hide from them, could mean the death of another changeling.”

“After the migration to the new dwelling, the birth of the first Princess made life easier.”

“Mother-Queen Arathea never lay any more eggs after she gave birth to ‘her little changeling’, Change-Queen Csillag. She gave us the ability to disguise ourselves to blend in with the ponies. Csillag’s brood was the first to actually be called changelings.”

“Arathea’s last rule was ‘Help the ponies thrive, so we may live!’, before she was encased in resin. Since then, every grub is taught the Law to keep the hive safe and prosperous.”

By the time Archive’s story about the Ancient Law reached its end, the fire was burning low. Lantern felt sorry for the filly in the story, but his heart went out to the changeling who accidentally ended her life as well. Emotions swirled inside him, and he felt saddened a bit. As he was thinking about what he heard, he missed the little wince of Archive. A thought occurred to Moon Lantern.

“So basically, you are never to be seen by ponies, except if their life is on the line, when you have to do everything to save them, and generally help ponies in their life?”

“Pretty much, but getting seen in our natural form is quite rare nowadays, thanks to our abilities. We’re just not allowed to let ponies see us undisguised.”

“How do you know I won’t use all the information you just gave me against you and your kind when we get out of here?” asked Lantern, already knowing he wouldn’t do it.

“I’m pretty sure the current situation the changelings are in would make everything I told you useless...and it’s not ‘when’, but ‘if’,” said Archive. “This cave is pretty big. We can find water without a problem, and I hardly need any solid food if I don’t have to make more resin, but you have to eat. We have to explore this place more if we are to survive. By the way, are you strictly herbivorous?” Archive questioned him nonchalantly.

“I could never eat another living thing.” answered the pegasus with disgust and a light green tint on his cheeks.

“Oh, that’s a bummer. I thought you could live off of me if we couldn’t find anything for you to eat, but it seems like that’s not an option.” Archive told him in the same tone one would offer a sandwich.

“You w-what?” stammered Lantern in equal parts of surprise and disgust. “First of all that is disgusting, and second, I couldn’t just kill you.”

“You silly stallion, I never said you’d have to.” she giggled.

That calmed Lantern and he gave a long sigh.

“I would kill myself.” Archive smiled at him.

A cold chill ran over Lantern and he shivered visibly. “You can’t be serious.”

Archive burst out laughing. “No, no, I’m not, but you should’ve seen the look on your face!” she clutched her aching side. “Ow, owowowow, note to self, laughing hurts.”

Lantern’s mouth turned up a bit at the way she laughed. “That’s not funny!”

Archive looked Lantern in the eyes and said, “Well, since I know you wouldn’t eat me, there would be no point in doing it, but you should know, I would do it in a heartbeat, if it meant you would survive. Told you, Ancient Law.”

“I’m quite honored but please, let’s not talk about stuff like that again.” pleaded the nauseous pegasus. “Thanks to that, I probably won’t be hungry for a while, but we should probably try to look around for something I could eat for breakfast tomorrow. Also, some more firewood would be good too.”

“I agree. Wanna bring a torch, or should I just guide you in the dark?” asked the nymph.

Lantern stood up and said “I’d feel much better with some light.”

He leaned down and grabbed a piece of wood from their dwindling supply in his mouth, holding the other end in the dying flames to light it, then propped the torch up on the side of a boulder. He was a little unsteady on his hooves as he stood up again. The splints supported him well, but as he put his full weight on the broken limbs, the pain that shot through him made him whimper a little.

Archive positioned herself on his left side and leaned against him. “Here, let’s help each other out.”

Lantern’s face warmed by her touch, and he turned his head away from Archive to mumble something under his breath, which she couldn’t really catch, so she asked, “What was that?”

“I-I said, t-thank you...for everything you’ve done for me.” squeaked Lantern abashedly.

Archive brightened up more from his words and said, “You are quite welcome.” with a very toothy smile.

Lantern took the torch in his mouth again, and they started to slowly make their way into the yawning darkness of the cave.